Beneath A Grapefruit Tree

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Lately the skies have had a different look, layered and tufted with tropical clouds, and at dawn and sunset brilliantly mauve and pink, casting a glow that seems to emanate from everywhere, the way it might if one were on a boat at sea.

Above you see how it looked in the morning, and although I hadn't planned to be up so early, it certainly turned out to be worth it.

Come to think of it, the whole day was one of guided detours, when even the simplest plans dissolve and new events replace them. I was walking to the garage to get my bicycle and ride over to the house where my newlywed daughter and her husband have been staying during their visit when I saw several grapefruit on the ground by the trees. The wind had been howling all night...another weather story...and the heavy fruit had dropped. Some were soft and rotting, but I was gathering a few to carry in my backpack when my mother-in-law Nancy called out to me.

"The ones from that tree aren't any good this year," she said, redirecting me to a grapefruit tree nearer the house. It happens to be her favorite, and one can easily see why. Its crown is full and symmetrical, its leaves green and glossy, its trunk straight and sturdy.

Nancy is often outside tending to things. She's a white-haired lady just a month away from ninety, but she moves about with grace and agility and is a great deal smarter and more clear-headed than I am. I like to check in with her when I meet her in the yard. Many of our best conversations take place when I am walking through the orchard on my way to elsewhere and she pauses from her work to chat. Lately I've begun to realize she truly is my own on-the-premises guru, an amazing resource.

On this occasion, all sorts of debris was churning around in my mind, uncleared by my brief attempt at meditating, and I started babbling at her.  Her only response was to calmly beckon me to a better tree. We both looked up from beneath its leafy branches, and she pointed out globes of fruit like bright yellow suns and demonstrated how a gentle not-quite-twist revealed its readiness to be picked.  

She handed me three or four of the beauties, then lingered to admire the tree, and I stood alongside her, noticing.I was struck by how expertly she had led me from abstract noise and negatives to the concrete present, and how she'd demonstrated something real instead of giving me advice. And she reminded me, without explicitly saying so, that I live on a hill above an orchard, for God's sake. The air had grown still, but it was infused with the fragrances of chaparral and blossom, of drying grasses and fallen leaves, and the indefinable sweetness of morning.

Being ninety the way Nancy is involves a lot of luck, that's for sure, but it also requires a certain attentiveness. She has her framework of routines, which impressively includes swimming laps once or twice a week at a pool in town, but she adjusts these routines as needed. She has a sense of the bigger picture, recognizes what matters and what doesn't, and she is not about to waste precious energy in pettiness or fretting about every little crisis that emerges. She is busy in tangible, useful ways but takes time out to rest and read (nonfiction is her preference), and if all else fails, there are trees to be tended and a yard to groom. Her presence is calming and illuminating somehow. I didn't always know it, but Nancy is one of my favorite people in the world.

So I pedaled off carrying good grapefruit in my backpack and a bit of equanimity. I had coffee and Cheerios with the newlyweds and we lingered and talked and embarked upon our would-be morning walk in the sullen heat of noon. I watched my daughter ascend the hill ahead of me with her usual ease and strength. Cooling breezes welcomed us at the top, and a suddenly mackerel sky.